That Way
by WaterGirl14
Summary: When I looked at her, my head rang sirens in my ears. I figured, at the time, that it was the locket. The radio was on, I remember that. I had never heard the song before. I will always remember it.


_This is my first attempt at a Harry Potter fic. Some notes: I personally feel like the movies and the books have a lot of differences in characterization and interaction. Therefore, I've come to think that H/Hr is significantly more plausible in the movies than the books. In my head, Harry and Hermione do have these moments in the movie universe, but I still think that the canon pairings win out in the end. Thanks in advance for reading and giving me feedback!_

"And you?"

The tension between the three of us was stifling. His eyes were locked on her, and hers on him. I couldn't see her face, just when she shook her head slightly. And then, a quick glance back to me, with all the confusion and misery and none of the anger that I was feeling.

Ron's face, already murderous, changed to heartbroken in that instant. He looked up at me as well – I could see it all in his face. Disbelief. Lack of trust. Jealousy.

"Right. I get it." He shifted his pack onto his shoulder. "I saw you two the other night."

Hermione was desperate. "Ron, there's _nothing_!"

And that was almost true.

My heart flipped in my chest. What had Ron seen? What was Ron feeling? The locket, I told myself. There was no other explanation. Making things up. I'd known what it was like to have it poisoning my mind. Ron was just making mountains out of invisible molehills.

But even that wasn't the whole truth.

Hermione had always been my best friend, but for most of my life, I had ranked her under Ron. Second place. Wouldn't you? Two young boys got on better than a young boy and girl, the latter of which always taking the opportunity to roll her eyes at our stupidity. But, then the Yule Ball. And, of course, still not being able to rank her above the Weasley, I placed her into a new category. Female friends. Her at the top, with female best friends. Ron, who was more like my brother than my friend, made it into the Family category in fifth year. Hermione never did.

I had claimed, a few times, that Hermione was like a sister to me. Sometimes Ginny had felt like that too. But Ginny I loved in a different way. Yes, she was beautiful. But she was not so delicate as Hermione. Ginny was rugged, boyish. Oh, she had her soft sides, but she was a Weasley. She had a little of her twin brothers and Ron and everyone in her. Even in the quiet moments, mischief twinkled behind her eyes.

I loved Ginny. There was no doubt of that in my heart. She was everything I wanted out of a girl. Strong. Passionate. Free-spirited.

Everything I wanted, yes. But decidedly _not_ everything I needed.

That was where the trouble started.

Ron had stormed out of the tent, and Hermione, outside, was calling, then screaming, his name. I heard the sound of him apparating minutes before I registered what it was. It wasn't until Hermione whispered, "...Ron?"

She sounded broken. I understood that. I felt like I had a knife in my chest. Then I felt like I had nothing at all.

Minutes passed in silence. She walked in without crying. If I had been able to feel anything other than shock, I would have been surprised. In fact, Hermione didn't shed any tears at all until her eyes caught mine.

She didn't even burst apart like I was expecting. She choked back a sob, muffled another one behind her hand. I thought, for a fleeting second, that I should let her fall in my arms, like I had done after she'd hexed Ron with the canaries those years ago. No, though. I wanted to stride over, and take her up into my arms, and hold her close.

I did neither. She turned, slow motion, and walked towards the stairs near Ron's bed. Her little cries were worse than sobs. It said, to me, that she had lost everything.

–

I don't remember how I had ended up in the chair on the other side of the tent. One minute I had been outside, glaring up at the cloudy sky, and the next I was there. Hermione hadn't moved since she'd stopped crying, just staring at a spot near Ron's "room" and sometimes at his radio, fiddling with the locket around her neck.

I knew this, because I stared at her for what felt like hours.

When I looked at her, my head rang sirens in my ears. I figured, at the time, that it was the locket. The radio was on, I remember that. I had never heard the song before. I will always remember it.

The floor between us seemed to expand the more I stared her. Probably just the enchantment on the tent.

Delicate, like a flower, petals all closed up. I couldn't stand to see her like that.

It turned out the floor was shorter than expected, because when I walked over to Hermione, it only seemed like a few steps. My hand, held out to her. _Do you trust me?_ I was raised just as much a Muggle as she was. Did she understand?

Perhaps not. The stone face didn't change, even as she let me pull her off the steps. Nothing, even when I slowly reached behind her neck. The fabric of her shirt was soft. Not as soft as her hair. And while she'd stopped wearing her perfume thanks to her scare with the snatchers, I could smell what was left of her shampoo.

Nothing like Ginny's.

Hermione stared at me. I couldn't read the expression on her face, even when I glanced up at her eyes. The locket was discarded. I led her to the middle of the floor.

We danced.

That being said, I couldn't dance, and I still can't to this day. But with the silly swaying I got her to smile in spite of herself. With a spin, poorly executed, she laughed. My blood sang. I'd gotten her to laugh.

For a moment, she was happy again, even when I missed the steps. Especially.

I pulled her into my arms at the end, rocking back and forth to the time of the music. The skin of her neck was smooth against my chin. But it was only a few moments – I felt the heaviness come into her again.

I was the one to pull back. One hand between us, the distance. Did she think I didn't catch her glance to my lips? She may have been the brilliant one, but I wasn't _that_ blind.

Her gaze dropped to my chest. She turned away, this time to go curl up into her bed.

I would have kissed her.

–

A few weeks passed. We settled back into some semblance of normal. She pored over her books. I brooded. Same as it had been for years, but without Ron.

Neither one of us had mentioned Ron since he'd left.

I would stare at the locket, and listen to it scream to me. Hermione would look up when it happened, I could see the movement out of the corner of my eye. It hurt, the locket. It boiled up nastiness within me, and gave me headaches, and sometimes I would catch flickers of another, darker place.

Once, I met her staring gaze.

She was somber, didn't look away.

She knew something that she didn't like.

That was all I got out of her. She looked back at her book, shut me out.

I went back to the screaming locket.

Maybe I knew something that _I_ didn't like.

–

Ron had been gone three weeks to the day when I caught Hermione lying in his bed and grasping at the blankets. I'd been outside, again. This time, the night was clear. Stars everywhere. The Dog star brightest of all. I must have been more raw than usual that night, as I came inside.

She was facing the wall. Didn't see me. I only had her sniffling to tell me that she was crying. She was apt to do that, lately.

This time, the urge to take her up into my arms was too great. I wanted to stomp over, but my feet wouldn't listen to me. All of my Gryffindor courage, and I could only tiptoe.

She noticed when I slowly sat down, by her knees. Her scramble to sit up would have been funny in other circumstances. As it was, I wasn't feeling much like laughing. Actually, it felt more like I had swallowed a chocolate frog whole.

Hermione's eyes were wide. Her mouth was open. There were still tears on her cheeks.

I brushed them away with my hand. That closed her mouth. Her skin was, as I had so often discovered, soft.

"How do you manage that?" I said without thinking.

A narrowing of the eyes. "What?" Was I accusing her of crying?

My fingertips brushed against her jawline as I pulled my hand away. "How do you manage to have such soft skin, after months on the run?"

_Softer than Ginny's_, I wanted to add. But I stopped myself. I shouldn't compare them – it was apples to oranges. Ginny rode brooms. Hermione read books. And fought Death Eaters. And was generally brilliant.

She blushed, looked down at my chest. "Lotion," she muttered.

The way she said it made me chuckle. So embarrassed about it.

We were silent for a moment. She continued staring at my chest and I let my hand dangle dangerously close to her arm.

"Harry," she started, but then seemed to decide against it, instead neatening up the blankets.

"Yeah?"

"It's nothing. Never mind." Hermione began to stand, but the blankets slowed her down – she'd been wrapped within them too intricately for just a few seconds of tidying to fix. The dangling hand grabbed her.

"It's not nothing." I gave her a bit of a tug. Sit down, Hermione, sit. She didn't budge and wouldn't look at me. "What is it?"

"I miss..."

She stopped again. Derailed. And I had to do something, say something.

I tried to smile at her. "And here I thought you liked being wrapped up in dirty bedding."

She made a small, cute noise. This time, when I tugged at her arm, she sat back down. And then, when I gently put my arm upon her shoulders, she leaned into me. I resisted the urge to celebrate, but couldn't tame my smile.

A few more moments of silence.

"I miss him too," I said, truthfully. We were getting nearly nowhere without him, even as surly and selfish as he could be.

"It's not the same for you." Hermione said it quickly, like it wasn't even worth mentioning but for my stupidity. "You don't... You're not..."

"You love him, don't you?" I said, matter of fact. There was no use for me to deny it. It had been obvious since third year.

She let out a hopeless sigh. I'd heard it before. Ron often elicited it from her when he was being a git.

For some reason, I pulled her a bit closer to me. She didn't object.

"He loves you, you know."

"Sure has a bloody good way of showing it." My mouth dropped open a bit. Hermione was not usually one to swear. She let out another sigh. "Sorry. I know he does."

That was a bit surprising. "I wasn't aware that you knew already."

"Come off it, Harry," she said with surprising venom. Her eyes, as they hit mine, were like daggers. I flinched. "You keep telling me I'm brilliant. Ron's not exactly hard to read."

I don't know why I said it. "Am I hard to read, Hermione?"

Her face changed. Annoyance and anger to confusion and then she blushed. "Sometimes," she said honestly. I couldn't blame her. I had a hard time understanding myself now and again.

Looking up at me from the crook of my neck, I suddenly had the thought that she was stunning. She flinched from me, and her hand came up to touch mine. Without realizing it, I'd moved from touching her arm lightly to sliding up her back, coming to rest in the hair at the nape of her neck.

She was three fingers away from me. I knew that, because that was how many she used to push into my chest and move away.

We stared at each other for the thousandth time.

"Your eyes are beautiful," she said quietly.

"Never heard that before," I quipped, and she smiled. Odd, though, that I felt like laughing this time, seeing her face light up.

"Your glasses have a smudge on them." Before I knew it, they were off my face and in her deft little hands, cleaning them off on Ron's bedspread. Typical Hermione, wanting order.

No, actually. She was trying not to look at me. She was red.

"Hermione, I need..." I didn't finish. My intent was to ask for my glasses back, because I couldn't see. But that was a lie. I could see all I needed, and that was her blushing face snapping up to me.

I have always found her confusion adorable, because it inevitably meant that she was going to go out and solve the problem. Today, I was her problem.

I kissed her. Too quickly.

When I jerked back, I couldn't think enough to read her face properly. That had been a blunder of passion. A mistake. Ginny, whom I loved, truly. She would leave me, and I couldn't handle that. Ron, my best friend – betraying his sister by kissing the first girl he'd ever cared about. The entire Weasley family was going to hate me. I had to get away from Hermione. Fast.

As I started to get up, I heard the clatter. My glasses had been tossed haphazardly onto the bedside table. As I turned to look, she grabbed the front of my shirt, pulled me into another kiss.

Kissing Hermione was nothing like kissing Ginny. Ginny's lips were drawn and tight, almost skinny. Hermione, though delicate, had a much plumper mouth. I wasn't used to it – it was like she was everywhere.

She pulled away, again too quickly.

"This is stupid, Hermione," I blurted out, although I suddenly wanted to kiss her again. How long _had_ I wanted to kiss her?

Tears. "Can't Hermione Granger be stupid once in a while?"

She kissed me again. It was sort of like what happened when she'd taken the locket off of me those weeks ago. Instant relief. But it was sort of like putting the locket back on as well – my ears were singing.

"I can't believe I'm kissing you," I groaned as I caught my breath.

"I'm kissing Harry Potter," she gasped. It was a good sound.

"This doesn't feel right. Ron–"

"I know."

I pushed her down on the bed without thinking. I didn't need to think. I just needed Hermione.

Her fingers were just as delicate as her face was. The feeling of them dancing around my hipbones should have been ticklish, but just made me kiss her deeper. Her tongue was cold and minty – she'd just brushed her teeth. Somehow that made sense. This all made sense.

A thought flitted into my mind. I tore away from her – again, confusion on her face.

"Are you still...?"

She blushed. "No."

I don't know why, but that was very much a relief.

"Ron?"

She nodded briefly. "Grimmauld Place."

"When?"

"_Harry_," Hermione chided. "That's personal!"

I had to know. Morbid curiosity.

"Besides," she continued, brushing a loose strand of hair from her face. "Are you?"

I shook my head. "Ginny. Before the wedding."

Another brief nod. "Good."

Yes, good. Good, because the right people had gotten to take what they deserved from us. Or, at least, that's what I told myself.

Even amongst all this talk, though, I still wanted to kiss her. Badly. And she was clutching me closer and thinking in her brilliant way, I could tell from the way her eyes crinkled.

"Both of us are in relationships right now," she said simply. It wasn't true, though. Ron and Hermione were not actually dating, and even if they had been, I would certainly have called them a complicated situation. And Ginny? I only had broken up with her to keep her safe. If I made it out of this alive, I was going to find her again and apologize for being The Boy Who Lived and take her out to a nice, romantic dinner.

But there was brilliant Hermione, here, now, in the way.

"What are you saying?" I pulled away from her a bit, pushed myself up off the bed – Ron's bed – to get a better look at her face.

"We've been dancing around each other for weeks, you know."

"Ginny makes me happy," I shot at her. True. I'd never been happier.

"Ron makes me happy," she countered. "And..."

_I want to kiss you._

The look on her face told me that. She wouldn't meet my eyes, she blushed, she tried to shrink in on herself.

We could die any day. We might never see Ron or Ginny or anyone ever again. And I knew what her hands felt like as they were in my hair, from her cutting it, and I liked it.

This time, I leaned down to kiss her slowly, and she met me halfway.

By now, the plumpness of her lips wasn't strange. It was welcome.

I found out that her hair smelled even better when I kissed it.

That she didn't have nearly as many neck freckles as Ginny.

That she was shaped in a different, both familiar and foreign way.

"We shouldn't," she whispered, when I kissed up her jaw.

"I know." My voice sounded strange. Like that chocolate frog in my throat had turned to gravel.

"Harry, I _need_ it." Such sadness, there. Such desperation. Like half of her was fighting to stop and half to go on.

I knew that feeling. But I couldn't stop. Not after such a plea.

Her neck tasted cold, like winter, as I kissed it. Her breath caught in her throat – I could feel it against my cheek. She twisted a hand into my hair and I thought I might die.

She was wearing a worn out pink sweatshirt that I unzipped hastily, getting stuck halfway down the middle. Underneath, a black t-shirt. Loose-fitting. I wondered if she had any freckles on her hips.

They would never find out, I told myself.

I slowly pulled her shirt away from her stomach, up to her chest. She froze.

"Should I stop?" Did she want this?

Hermione took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "I'm not any good at this."

There. That was my out. My reason for once. "Let's try," I said. I pulled the shirt a little further.

"You love Ginny!" she burst. "And she loves you!"

That stopped me, for a moment. As much as I tried to push it down, the guilt was simmering in the back of my mind. Hermione was right – I did love Ginny. Some of the best parts of my life came from that brief time when we dated, at Hogwarts. Carefree and relatively innocent. No dark wizards to worry about. No nothing.

"Why are we doing this?" Hermione whispered, just barely audible.

My conviction came rushing back. I propped myself up on my arms, to look at her properly. "You're right." I couldn't run a hand through my hair in this position, especially since the girl beneath me was still grasping it. "I love her. Ginny is all I ever wanted in a girl. But Hermione, you _have_ to understand." I managed to awkwardly grab her hand, the one at my side. "I want Ginny in my life. I _need _you in my life. And..." How to say it? Her grip tightened on me. I met her eyes, willing her to know how I felt. They were a beautiful brown.

"And...?" she prompted.

"Ron and Ginny aren't here, and I will _always_ regret not taking this chance." Never knowing if he was making the right decision, by picking Ginny. She, picking Ron. "I don't know if I love you as a friend... Or..."

Her eyes lit up like they did when she solved a potions problem. "This can be practice."

"...What?"

"_Practice,_ Harry." Like I was, once again, the stupidest man in the world. "If it doesn't work out, it's just practice. For them."

That struck me as strangely juvenile, for her. And naïve. Something a woman who regularly fought Death Eaters shouldn't say. But maybe that made sense. We tumbled into something deadly every other week. We could die at any moment. Were it not for the radio, we wouldn't even know if our friends were still alive.

I was done with dancing.

I kissed her for the hundredth time and dropped down off my arms. Her little surprised squeak was like music. It felt like there were knots of strings in my stomach and they made me tug her shirt up over her chest.

She'd been getting ready for bed. No bra. I think I might have died, in that moment, suddenly confronted with two creamy, unspeckled, familiar but different breasts.

They overflowed in my hands as I fondled them. I thought she was going to burst when she curled over and into me. The tips were soft. A few bumps here and there. There was a patch of rosy pink just under one nipple, like someone had colored outside the lines.

No freckles.

"Hermione," I croaked out through the knot in my throat. "Take this off."

She shakily removed her shirt and tossed it aside. I would discover, later, that it hung off the foot of the bed, with the rest of our clothes.

Her first instinct was to try and shy away, but those thin fingers I'd admired before couldn't hide everything.

"You're beautiful, 'Mione."

She let me pull her arms up above her head, ever so gently, with watering eyes. She tasted like skin and the lemon soap we had to use and woman. She squeaked, instead of gasping, like I was used to. When I sucked on her collarbone, that got the gasp.

"No,_ no_!" A wriggle and a hiss. "You'll leave marks – Harry! _Harry_!"

But I _ached_. It had been so long since someone had said my name like that. Not since the summer.

"Tell me to stop, then." My voice sounded more like a growl. Hermione stilled. For a moment, I feared that I'd scared her. "Tell me to stop, and do it now." My hands were twitching. All my eyes could take in was cream-colored skin. "Once I get started, it'll be hard for me to slow down, 'Mione."

She lifted her chin, defiant even through a few sparkling tears. "Only _Ron_ calls me 'Mione."

When I reached for her cheek, she leapt at me. We bounced on the bed. _Thunk_, _thunk_. Her hands, one on either side of my head, legs spread across my hips.

"Take off your shirt," Hermione demanded, staring at me. Merlin, her eyes were on fire. And her chest, right up in my face, nearly irresistible, but my reaching hand was batted away. She looked nearly as maddened as I felt. My calm, logical Hermione, gone. Brilliant to calculating to demanding in minutes.

I hastily obliged as she slapped at my wrist again. There was a soft swish.

_...everyone here knows everyone here is thinking about somebody else.. _

The radio was on. I was just realizing it now, in the back of my mind, while Hermione Granger leaned back to press down into my hipbones, looking at my collection of chest scars, and pretending not to notice how I'd groaned and shuddered.

I thought I heard her swear under her breath. Her fingernails grazed up my sides. She frowned when I blinked up at her.

"It tickles."

"It does?" She chewed her lip. Back to delicate, and to curious, and to absorbing information like she was wont to do.

My hands selfishly found her waist and pulled her down into me again. I sucked in a breath. _"This_ – _ah_... this didn't."

She bounced on me – an experiment. I yelped. Too hard. She bubbled out an apology and scrambled back.

"No, no." I pulled her back on top of me. She was lighter than she looked. Her stomach, resting on mine, was warm and comforting. "It was an accident. It happens."

"Can I touch you?" she burst out, leaning up a bit, pulling her shirt off. I had to dodge her elbow. Her breasts bounced as she started working at my belt buckle.

She was clumsy, pulling my jeans off and scrambling. I suddenly realized that I had no idea how she liked to be touched.

Hermione flushed a glorious shade of red that would have done a Weasley proud. I had to chuckle. She shot me the most venomous glare, and then yanked my boxers down with such force that I winced.

"_Oh, my_..."

"...Thanks?"

"No, no," she said, reaching forward and then quickly withdrawing her hand. "It's a good thing. Ron's is–"

"_Please_ don't finish that sentence."

"...different?"

"_Blimey,_ Hermione. I'm not telling you about _Ginny's_–"

She responded by grabbing and tugging. I was now very convinced that I was dying, especially when she sped up without preamble.

"If you don't stop–" Faster, faster, faster.

"Why would I stop?"

I saw stars. She jumped.

"Oh."

"_Sahhh_...sorry."

Hermione bit her lip, and didn't move from her perch on my thighs, and was tracing her fingernail along my stomach like she wanted something. But my head was so, _so_ fuzzy. I was not one for a fast rebound.

I had to do something, and she seemed to like it when I sluggishly ran a hand down below her bellybutton and over her jeans, and she hinged forward and planted her hands on my chest when I not-so-sluggishly rubbed harder. Her hips shifted toward my thumb – I pressed harder and she went rigid. It was much more difficult to unzip her pants than it should have been, but somehow we go them and her modest panties off without catastrophe.

I was expecting bare, and got bushy. Come to think of it, though, I should have expected bushy. I'd never seen a Hermione with tamed hair in my life, except possibly the Yule Ball and the wedding. Still, it was a little...odd. Maybe it wasn't fair to her, though. It wasn't like we had an abundance of razors, nor the luxury of privacy.

The dark curls were soft as I rubbed my palm against her.

Her orgasm was silent and trembly, and it seemed to be so short that I seriously doubted she really had one. Especially since she sort of jerked her hips against my hand afterward and gripped my shoulders. And she seemed frustrated when I slid a finger inside her, instead of happy, but Merlin if her whimper wasn't one of the best things I'd ever heard, even after my 17-year-old hair trigger. Then she didn't bat my other hand away when I reached up to rub her chest and things were looking...up.

I heard some sort of babbling noise through the haze in my head, coming down from my chest, and I realized that Hermione Granger, the brightest witch in our year, my best friend, was twitching and begging me to stop teasing her, please, Harry please, just do it, I can't take it, _Harry._

Hard to say no to something like that.

Hard to say no to Hermione in general.

I'd felt her tight and wet around my fingers and it wasn't enough. The clouds in my head weren't lethargic anymore and these new ones made it just as hard to think. I'm not sure how she ended up underneath me – I think she might have said ouch in the process – but I distinctly remember her stopping me from sliding into her without a "contraceptive charm" or something that didn't seem very important.

She was so soft. Soft everywhere, as I moved clumsily inside her. Soft and slick, with her palms a little sweaty as she grabbed at me, and, as I drove forward with more force than I had intended, her back came off the bed a bit, and I thought that the sight of her head thrown against the pillows would never leave me.

She felt differently heavenly in a way that was impossible to describe, even though her hands wandered to places I wasn't used to and she squeaked almost as much as the bed and insisted on angling her hips away from mine. The little adjustments were almost like a game for me, or they would have been, if I had realized I was playing.

I wondered, when she grabbed my hand and pulled it down to herself with a frustrated chuff, if this is how it was like for her and Ron, because it sort of felt like being tutored.

Or maybe Ron didn't need to be tutored?

"Keep going," Hermione reprimanded breathlessly.

I did.

–

The next morning, she seemed to find the ceiling much more interesting than me.

When I asked her what was wrong, all she said was, "You whisper in your sleep." Then she got up to make tea.

–

It seemed that we had independently decided that we weren't going to talk about it, just like how we weren't going to talk about Ron. At the same time, we'd come to a silent understanding that it shouldn't happen again.

This didn't stop us from relapsing into it. She was beautiful, and she looked strangely ravishing when she was glum and worried over a book.

But, after the third or fourth time, when a few weeks had passed, Hermione said, "I miss Ron."

Right out of the blue. Without prompting. We were just eating dinner, something that had probably been transfigured from tree bark for how appetizing it was.

I wasn't sure how to respond to that.

"We should stop," she blurted out a few silent moments later.

I heaved a sigh. "I suppose we should."

That was the end of that conversation.

Encounters five through seven were significantly more inflamed.

–

The strange thing about sex with Hermione – and I say sex, because _fucking_ and _making love_ both sounded wrong – was that I didn't have any desire to learn about her. It was distinctly different from Ginny. Yes, I wanted to make sure that she was getting something out of it, I wasn't completely selfish. Yes, watching Hermione tremble and gasp was right sexy. But with Ginny, all I could think about was her, her, her. Touching her. Kissing her. Ginny made me insatiable. I felt wobbly inside just looking at her and I was half convinced that pleasing her was a drug.

Hermione was just...there. She was a woman, a woman I cared about very much, a woman whose body was becoming much more familiar to me. But the first time I had seen Ginny starkers, I'd wanted to kiss every single freckle I saw on her. And Hermione just didn't do that for me.

She put her head on my shoulder as I looked at my parents' gravestones. I was immensely grateful to have her, to have someone. Hermione was my best friend. She read me well. I could easily see myself spending my life with her.

But not _with_ her.

Or maybe I could...?

Our escape from Nagini didn't make me want to kiss her. It only made me want to talk.

"Maybe we should just stay here, Harry."

She had this tiny smile on her face. Her eyes were dull. I still needed her.

"Grow old?"

She didn't look convinced, even as she drew in a shaky breath and handed me the pieces of my wand.

–

Ron was back the next evening.

When I watched him face the locket, I was shocked at how Hermione and I looked together.

Wrong.

I wanted to destroy that vision almost as much as he did.

–

I caught her in his arms at Shell Cottage, when they thought I was asleep, all whispered apologies and tears and Hermione curled up into Ron's chest, sounding broken, "Make it go away, Ron, make it go away," like she'd never been angry with him at all.

_Not still mad at him, are you?_

_I'm always mad at him._

Mad for each other, I had thought to myself that night. That's what they are. Bloody insane together.

Then again, that's sort of how I felt about his sister.

–

"I'll go with you," she sobbed.

She hugged me so tight it was hard to breathe. That might have been the knot of dread, of fear, in my throat. It was the first time she had held me since he'd come back.

I almost kissed her again.

I wonder if she caught that. The slight lean forward as I looked into her eyes.

She must have. She was nothing but brilliant.

–

I will always remember Ginny's scream, when she saw me dead in Hagrid's arms. The sound of it echoed through my head for years afterward, and the only thing that made it stop, even for an instant, was holding her. In the common room. The girl's – and boy's – dormitory. In her room at the Burrow. At Grimmauld Place. Our flat that would be our home for our first five years. Back to Grimmauld place.

Ginny and Ron never found out. But sometimes, I wondered if they suspected anything, the way we glanced at each other after certain comments. Drunk out of his mind and lolling on the couch, Ron sloshing a beer at me like I have to understand. _Hermione has the best arse I've ever seen. The way it feels in my fingers is just..._

And he hunts for words when I know the one he wants. She smacks him with the back of her hand and we look at each other in just the wrong way.

I never touched Hermione again, save a few hugs here and there, and one particularly bad row she'd had with Ron where she cried on my shoulder for an hour.

"Why am I with that man?" she said, far too calmly.

Because I felt wrong to you. You felt wrong to me. Because we both have a thing for red hair and your eyes are the wrong color brown.

"Because he makes you crazy, 'Mione."

I sent her home to her husband, shaken, more angry than upset, but determined to work things out and give him a piece of her mind all the same.

–

Sometimes, Ron and I go out to the Leaky Cauldron for drinks, talk about our wives.

"I'm surprised," he slurred once, "Hermione and you never got together."

"What?"

"I mean," and he took another shot of his firewhiskey, "You two were together all the time."

"So were you two."

"Yeah."

"She's always been in love with you, mate." I took a swig of my spiced mead. It had been almost a decade since being on the run. "Since second year, I reckon." No, maybe not. "Or fourth."

He stared down into his shot glass for far too long, said nothing as I ordered another round.

"Don't you think...it could have gone that way?"

The drinks arrived. Mine was gone before it could hit the table.

I thought about Ginny, my wife, the mother of my two young sons and pregnant with my third child. She was hoping for a daughter. Hermione, one little girl in the world and a little one on the way. Two families, close to interchangeable. And the three of us, who were still almost as inseparable as we'd been in school. One extended family I would not have traded anything for.

"Yeah, Ron," I said truthfully. "It could have."


End file.
